a. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an Internet television device, i.e., a television set with capability of connecting to the Internet, and particularly to a method for correlating so-called hot spots, which are selectable items in a home-page of the Internet, with operation buttons of a remote controller of the television device so as to directly select the hot spots by using the operation buttons.
b. Related Art
Conventionally, the Internet access usually requires that a personal computer to be used and a user has at least a minimum of computer-related knowledge. Specifically, a keyboard was needed for the operation, which made it difficult for users who are unfamiliar with the keyboard, to operate it. For this reason, the participants in the Internet tended to be limited to experts, not widely opened to public people.
A TV game machine is known as a handy type of hardware configuration to access the Internet. In this case, the operation is conducted with a controller attached to the game machine. The controller allows a remote control of the game machine, but is configured to use a cable line, which connects the controller to the game machine, for the original purpose of the same. The controller is to be manipulated with two hands and hence it is troublesome to operate it. Further, it was bothersome to trail the cable around, making it inconvenient to use the controller.
The applicant has proposed a TV device with an Internet accessing capability in Japanese Patent Application No. 8-246528. This TV device allows a user, with a single-hand-operable wireless remote controller similar to that for the prior art TV sets, to control the focussing on hot spots in a home-page by using cursor motion keys which are provided on the remote controller. With a desired hot spot focussed, a press of a SELECT button causes a selection of the hot spot.
However, such operation using the cursor motion keys and SELECT button is not easy to use and, hence, it is desirable to be capable of more simply and conveniently pointing and selecting a hot spot.
It is an object of the invention to provide a method and device which makes it possible to easily select a hot spot on a given home-page of the Internet.
It is another object of the invention to control an Internet television device with a remote controller similar to that for the prior art television sets, so as to perform a wireless control of the Internet television device with a simple operation.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a method and device capable of reducing the number of operations required for a user to select a desired hot spot in an HTML document on a display screen.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method and device capable of assigning operation buttons to hot spots respectively in an HTML document on a display screen.
According to the invention, there is provided a method for selecting, with operation buttons, hot spots on a WEB browser display of an Internet television device, comprising the steps of: receiving an HTML document from a WEB server; detecting button identifiers of operation buttons which are preset in the received HTML document and associated with anchor tags existing in the same; creating a button assignment table which defines a matching relationship between the detected button identifiers and hot spots corresponding to the anchor tags; determining which one of the hot spots has been designated by a user by referring to the button assignment table on the basis of one of the operation buttons operated by the user; and selecting the thus determined hot spot.
Preferably, when creating the HTML document at the site of the WEB server, statements specifying the button identifiers for the associated operation buttons are put in the associated anchor tags corresponding to the respective hot spots to which the operation buttons are to be assigned. Also, when creating the HTML document at the WEB server, display information is added in the document in association with each hot spot, which indicates which operation button is assigned to that hot spot.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided an Internet television device capable of connecting to the Internet, comprising: means for accessing a WEB server on the Internet; means for storing HTML documents received from the WEB server; means for interpreting the HTML documents and drawing an image on an image memory; a display on which the drawn image is displayed; a wireless remote controller for remotely controlling the Internet television device; means for detecting button identifiers of operation buttons of the remote controller which are preset in the received HTML document and associated with anchor tags existing in the same and for creating a button assignment table which defines a matching relationship between the detected button identifiers and hot spots corresponding to the anchor tags; means for determining which one of the hot spots has been designated by a user by referring to the button assignment table on the basis of one of the operation buttons operated by the user and for selecting the thus determined hot spot.
The Internet television device may be embedded in a TV set. Alternatively, this device may be realized in the form of an external device of a prior art TV set, which provides the TV set with a capability of connecting to the Internet. In the latter case, it is preferable to use the remote controller commonly for the TV set.
With the invention, it is possible to select a desired hot spot with only one press of an operation button in a home-page of the Internet, as in the channel selection of the TV set.
The invention will be more clearly understood from the following description of some embodiments thereof given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings.